Smoke-free environments enhance the appeal of family consumption, and the World Health Organization calls for comprehensive advancement of smoke-free environment initiatives.
“Currently, parent-child consumption is quite popular, and parents care a lot about smoke-free environments, which enhances the appeal of such settings to this demographic,” said a hotel industry manager from Guangzhou.
Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) office in China held an event in Beijing themed “Smoke-free Co-creation, Win-win Development,” where Martin, the WHO representative in China, stated: “Today, over 70% of the Chinese population does not smoke, yet only 16.8% of the population is protected by comprehensive smoke-free regulations. We often personally experience the harms of secondhand and thirdhand smoke in restaurants, hotels, and similar environments, leaving many pregnant women and children exposed to such conditions. Numerous surveys and studies show that a smoke-free environment has positive effects on businesses. For instance, in Beijing, the implementation of comprehensive smoke-free legislation has actually improved table turnover rates and customer satisfaction in the catering industry.”
Martin called for immediate action from all parties to promote the development of comprehensive smoke-free environments, protect public health, and support sustainable economic growth.
The “Healthy China Action (2019-2030)” outlines a goal to ensure that by 2030, at least 80% of the population is protected by comprehensive smoke-free regulations. This clear policy objective enjoys broad public support. The “2018 China Adult Tobacco Survey” indicated that 90.9% of people support a complete smoking ban in indoor workplaces, 92.9% support a complete smoking ban in taxis, and 79.9% support a total ban in restaurants. Major cities across the country, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Xi’an, and Hangzhou, show more than 90% public support for comprehensive smoke-free laws.
Guo Wenjie, a fourth-level researcher at the Health Promotion Office of the National Health Commission, emphasized during his speech that the Chinese government places great importance on public health. The “Healthy China 2030” plan explicitly states the need to advance tobacco control compliance and strengthen tobacco control efforts, which is a commitment of the Chinese government to the world.
Guo Wenjie explained: “Among the 15 special actions of the Healthy China initiative, we particularly emphasize tobacco control, demonstrating the government’s focus on this issue. In recent years, significant progress has been made in tobacco control in China, with the smoking rate among adults aged 15 and older falling to 24.1% in 2022, while the smoking rate among adolescents aged 13 to 15 is at 3.1%, surpassing the global average. However, we still have a way to go to reach our goal of reducing adult smoking rates to 20% by 2030. We will continue to reduce the current smoking population, curb the increase, and control contributing factors, gathering efforts from various departments to intensify tobacco control measures and extend the benefits of smoke-free environments to more citizens.”
The economic benefits of smoke-free regulations in public places significantly outweigh the implementation costs.
Representatives from various industries shared their successful experiences and challenges regarding the creation of smoke-free workplaces and business environments. They generally agreed that while initial challenges may arise—such as employee and customer acceptance, concerns over business income, and limited effectiveness in discouraging smoking due to a lack of enforcement power—the long-term benefits of smoke-free environments far exceed these short-term challenges.
He Baogui, vice president of the Beijing Catering Industry Association, stated that smoke-free policies create a fresher and healthier dining environment, enhancing customer dining experiences and thus increasing restaurant revenue. He shared his experience of collaborating with the Beijing Smoking Control Association on a smoke-free restaurant initiative in 2017, which was well-received by customers and improved the restaurant’s brand image.
A study published in The Lancet Public Health in November 2024 found that the comprehensive smoke-free legislation implemented in public places in Shanghai in 2017 resulted in a 2.2% decline in smoking rates among urban residents aged 18 and older, equivalent to a reduction of 8.4% in the number of current smokers.
The researchers further explained that if similar comprehensive smoke-free laws were adopted nationwide, the potential economic benefits would be equivalent to 0.04%-0.07% of China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This benefit far exceeds the economic costs of enforcing comprehensive smoke-free legislation in public places, demonstrating the cost-effectiveness of such measures from an economic perspective.
This research, titled “The Impact of Shanghai’s Comprehensive Smoke-free Legislation on Smoking Behavior and the Potential Economic Impacts of Implementing Similar Legislation Nationwide,” was collaboratively published by scholars from various institutions, including Peking University, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, Heidelberg University, Peking Union Medical College, Fujian Medical University, and Harvard University.
In this climate of rising parent-child consumption, smoke-free environments enhance the attractiveness of consumer settings.
Representatives from the hotel and catering industries emphasized the positive impact of creating smoke-free environments on reducing cleaning costs, avoiding customer disputes, and improving overall management efficiency. They noted that in an era where parent-child consumption is popular, smoke-free environments enhance the attractiveness of related consumer scenarios, while also reducing exposure to tobacco for teenagers and children, thus protecting their physical and mental health.
Some representatives called for more regions to introduce comprehensive smoke-free regulations to provide policy support for corporate tobacco control efforts and reduce communication hurdles with employees and customers. Other representatives shared experiences regarding internal tobacco control systems, volunteer teams, and the use of smoke detectors as part of smoke-free environment initiatives. Representatives from the real estate sector mentioned that tobacco control should consider practical situations, advocating for the reasonable placement of outdoor smoking areas combined with effective guidance and cessation support.
Xiao Lin, director of the Tobacco Control Office at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, stated: “Smokers have the right to smoke, but it is unacceptable for their smoking to harm non-smokers through secondhand smoke.”
She encouraged companies to remain confident in their tobacco control efforts, saying, “The formation of a smoke-free concept takes time. Looking back to 2007, when we promoted smoke-free healthcare institutions, smoking was prevalent in many hospitals. Today, there is a general consensus that smoking is not allowed in hospitals. Our monitoring data indicates that in 2010, the exposure rate to secondhand smoke in China was 72.4%, which has dropped to 52.4% by 2022, with significant declines in workplace exposure. More and more decision-makers in companies recognize the concept of smoke-free environments and have joined the movement to create smoke-free spaces to protect employee health.”
Smoke-free workplaces and business environments can bring both health and economic benefits simultaneously.
A report released jointly by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Development Programme in 2017 stated that effectively implementing comprehensive smoke-free policies across all workplaces in China (office buildings) could protect hundreds of millions of Chinese people from the harms of secondhand smoke, reduce the number of male smokers in China by 13 million, and prevent 6 million premature deaths among smokers. It could also further avoid 2 million cases of poverty due to illness and 4 million instances of catastrophic medical spending.
Encouragingly, even in cities where comprehensive smoke-free laws have yet to be implemented, some companies are voluntarily creating smoke-free environments. Studies show that smoke-free workplaces and business settings can yield both health and economic benefits. Since the launch of the “Your Rights, My Responsibility” smoke-free workplace initiative by the WHO office in China and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2018, over 60 Chinese companies have joined, employing a total of more than 410,000 people.
“Smoke-free workplaces are a cost-cutting and efficiency-improving measure for businesses, benefiting employees, employers, and visitors alike. A comprehensive smoke-free approach is an unstoppable trend. Approximately 40% of the global population, over 2.1 billion people, are protected by comprehensive smoke-free environments, which indirectly proves that smoke-free workplaces are a very viable solution,” concluded Li Kewi, the tobacco control technical officer at the WHO office in China.
